This is an advert for Bastille’s debut studio album BAD BLOOD released in 2013 under Virgin Records.

The layout of the poster, especially the style of credits at the bottom are reminiscent of a film poster rather than music due to the use of conventions. It may suggest that this album is more of a cohesive story than individual songs. Alternatively, it could be a general homage to film as we know with their new album Wild World, the singer Dan Smith takes inspiration for his work from the world of television.

At the top it says “Bad Steel”. This is just synthetic company fabricated to make this mock film poster seem more plausible. It is obviously a near homophone of the actual band name and has been included for a slight bit of humour which is conventional for many of Bastille’s creations.

The single image of this poster is unconventional (for any genre). Usually when promoting an album there will be only as far out as a mid-shot image of the artist/s facing the camera in a studio setting in order to gain star appeal and make clear who it is by. Instead a longshot of, presumably, the singer running away from the camera in the night on a road is used. The only lighting present looks like that of a cars headlight (plausible given the location). The slight motion blur in the picture confirms he is running away, presumably from the source of headlights chasing him. This feeling of wanting to run away is something many people could relate to. Where the light does not reach and the darkness takes over towards the edge of the shot, it has been blended with a standard black background to create a flowing design. This does give Indie impressions just because it’s different and has more meaning than a simple photoshoot.

The stylised font of the letter “A” to “Δ” in this is unique to this album and creates a brand that the audience can recognise.

It is an interesting decision not to show any band member’s faces as during the time this first album was released Bastille were still fairly unknown as a band. The public could have been familiar with the name as they peaked to No.2 in the UK Singles Chart with Pompeii however that being their only hit at the time meant their brand exposure and therefore status was unfamiliar. This could have explained why they didn’t appear- since nobody knows their faces, trying to gain star appeal would be pointless with nobody recognising them. This instead is quite mysterious and obtains the curiosity of the viewer.

The running aspect may also be a reference to the Pompeii video as Dan Smith stars in that too and multiple times throughout the video he runs away so it could be trying to create synergy with their most known song hoping people see the link. Dan running away could be seen as cowardly and not brave like traditional media stereotypes may have shown males to be. It follows Gauntlett’s theory of masculinity in crisis.

This is an iTunes advert for British Alternative Rock band Coldplay’s fifth album. It was released in 2011 by EMI.

Immediately the striking thing about this advert is the bright colours. Pinks and yellows are predominant and common at the centre of the page with slightly less bright blues around the edges meaning the viewer’s eye is drawn towards the middle. This one picture of the graffiti covers the entire screen and the writing is overlaid. The font colour is white- it would be difficult to find a single colour that would show up against the array of different colours but it needed to be neutral and also bright for it be legible. The main chunk of the font which holds the crucial, basic details (band name, album name and release date) is large but because it has been made just an outline sacrifices none of the brilliant imagery behind it- even the counters within letters don’t have an outline.

The image is graffiti which holds obvious artistic origins. It is seen by many because of the vandalism side as a rebellious act. It is a raw form of expression of one’s self because there are no rules to conform to. Coldplay are perhaps trying to imply their art (music) is rebellious, non-conforming and genre-bending. It is also directly relevant to this concept album in which a supremacist government launch a war on sound and colour and this shows their defiance. It could be a social comment on our own government and their attempts to inhibit our creativity in which case the message would be to fight against it.

The biggest part of the writing is the album name Mylo Xyloto. It has the thickest outline to make it stand out that fraction more. It has also been arranged to be symmetrical with the letters separated 3, 4, 3 per line despite this breaking up the induvial words. This allows it to be more centred on the haze of bright colour. The date underneath this doesn’t specify that is the release date but it expects the audience to have a basic enough understanding of the media where they could link an unreleased album name and a date. No year assumes it is the current one and this promotion will only be used until it is released at which point the date becomes irrelevant. In a standard san serif font at the bottom where I people are likely to look last after being interested by the rest of the advert are the pedestrian, extra details.